‘Take your helmet off,’ I said. ‘If the sun catches it you’ll give the game away.’
The German tugged at his chinstrap until it came loose, afterwards tossing the thing down to his friend to look after.
‘How far can you see?’ Publilius asked.
‘About a quarter of a mile beyond the trees.’
We waited. There was nothing more to be said. Cerberus was riding along the road at a gentle pace as though on patrol. The plan was that he would come across Otho’s cavalry on the road. They would engage, cause some damage, then make a hasty retreat. The retreat of course was a feint. The cavalry would serve their purpose in bringing the eager, unthinking men of Otho’s army on to the waiting swords and spears of my auxiliaries.
The scouts had reported that the enemy cavalry was out in force, as I knew they would be. Agricola and I had agreed that they should be no more than two miles east of the twin gods’ altar, and my friend had told me they were commanded by a general who was keen to prove himself to his new emperor, and so the two of us engineered his chance.
While we waited, it struck me how quiet and blissful the morning was. The Aprilis sun shone down just the same as it had done the day before, and the birds were chirping and twittering away merrily. The Germans stood in grim silence. I can even remember yanking hard at an ear of wheat then pulling it apart by its ticklish hairs, just to occupy my hands. Better that than being seen drumming my fingers nervously on the pommel of my sword.
Off in the distance there was a low rumbling.
‘Thunder?’ Publilius wondered. There were a few clouds in the sky, but that wasn’t it. Then again, if it was what I thought it was, why had we heard it before we saw it?
‘I see cavalry,’ the German said.
‘How many?’ I asked quickly.
The soldier screwed up his eyes. ‘Moving too fast to count. But there are many of them.’
I thought I saw a glimpse of movement on the horizon myself. It had to be Cerberus, I was sure of it. Soon I could make out the individual horses as they rode at breakneck speed towards the shady grove.
‘They are being followed by more horses,’ the German announced from his makeshift vantage point. ‘More cavalry than the first group.’
I punched the air with delight, but instantly regretted it as the muscles in my arm spasmed in reproach. But the general had taken the bait.
‘Pass the word down, I want our wing to wheel left towards the grove, then we can bring all our men to bear against the enemy on the causeway. Publilius, once we surprise the cavalry you take command of the men on the other side of the road.’
‘Yes, General.’
Cerberus and his men were past the altar by now, not daring to ease their pace lest the enemy suspected something. Our flank was already advancing further into the fields to take up their position.
‘The enemy are into the grove now,’ the soldier reported.
Cerberus and his men were practically alongside us, but they couldn’t stop until we had sprung the trap. I told the German to get off Achilles and rejoin his men; we would be charging within moments and I would need my horse. As the two squadrons flew past, I caught glimpses of gashed arms and riderless horses. I hoped Cerberus hadn’t been too suicidal in making a convincing feint attack.
I stood by Achilles, poised to clamber into the saddle once the attack had begun. But where were the cavalry? The road to the altar was empty.
‘They must still be hidden by the trees,’ Publilius suggested.
I said nothing, my eyes fixed on the damned trees. An entire minute passed, and nothing happened. Still Cerberus couldn’t wheel round for fear of giving the game away. What was going on? Perhaps the general had realized how close to our camp at Cremona he was, or maybe the thick clump of trees by a largely open road made him nervous of an ambush. There wasn’t time to guess why, I had to act.
I mounted up, and saw the eager faces among the wheat. Drawing my sword with my left hand, I raised it to the heavens. ‘Charge!’
With a shout the men dashed forward, making for the raised causeway. Achilles was up the slope in a trice, and on seeing me the cohorts on the northern side ran to attack the stranded cavalry. A quick check over my shoulder revealed that Cerberus had seen me and was turning his squadrons round to join the fray again. The road was now awash with men who had been poised to attack as the enemy rode past. As the cavalry in the grove ahead prepared to charge the seething mass of men, they were assaulted on their left flank by the units I had sent up ahead. Down below I could see Publilius urging on his own command, sending his own wing on a flanking march so that we could attack Otho’s only cavalry from three, maybe even all sides.
Achilles stayed calm among the churning crowd of soldiers eagerly sprinting forward, despite the clanging of their armour as they ran and the whinnies of pain up ahead as the first horses fell. I rode as far along the road as I dared; my weakened shoulder meant that I was unable to fight, but there was no way in Hades I would hang back while my men fought and died.
To give Otho’s men credit, they kept their shape and held their nerve. As one cohort after another sprang up to encircle the enemy, the cavalrymen scythed down with their long spatha swords that gave them the reach they needed to fight from horseback. From down in the fields a few pila were hurled towards the enemy, only for most of them to stick in or ricochet off the trees that effectively shielded the cavalry’s flanks.
A clatter of hooves behind told me that our own cavalry had returned.
‘We took some losses, General,’ Cerberus reported, ‘but it looks as though we’re paying them back with interest!’
I held up my hand to silence him. Beyond the crowd of spearmen and horses, I could make out more of Otho’s army arriving in support. Agricola had done his work well.
‘Gods, it’s the Praetorian Guard!’ Cerberus said. He was right, no other men wore the plumes of dyed horsehair on their helmets that in normal legions were reserved for officers only.
‘Quick, Cerberus. Get your men forward now and make a screen for the infantry. The enemy will have seen some of our auxiliaries, but I want as many as possible to get down into the fields again and take up positions either side of the causeway. Let’s see if we can’t make this a double ambush.’
Cerberus saluted and was gone. The praetorians were marching in force; I guessed around 7,000 of them were heading into the jaws of our trap. Their cavalry were in full retreat now, the corpses of horses and men littering the road, a grisly offering at the peasants’ altar. My own cavalry were hastily telling the rearmost auxiliaries to get off the road and back into their ambush positions, while the most advanced foot soldiers parted to let the horsemen through. There was little a cavalry charge on a narrow causeway could do against a mass of well-trained spearmen, but I hoped it would give the enemy cause to slow down, allowing my men to get back into their hiding place. Soon the road was empty but for my cavalry, perhaps four or five cohorts of infantry and the column of praetorians marching ponderously forward, keeping their close formation. I made a mental note to myself to recommend to Vitellius that Agricola be made a consul for what he had achieved, after Valens and I had had our turn of course.
The enemy column came ever closer. One of the cohorts ahead, the Lusitanians, to a man grounded their arms, then drew out their slings. Lusitanians are perhaps the finest slingers in the west of the empire, and it made sense to thin the enemy numbers a bit while they were still too far away to charge. Taking stones from little pouches on their belts, they whirled their missiles rapidly round their heads before letting fly, the stones attacking the enemy like a deadly hailstorm. There was only time for two volleys before they picked up their swords and shields again, but two volleys were still better than none.
Out of the corner of my eye I sensed some movement in the fields on our right. Probably some of the auxiliaries nervously getting into place; the column was little more than 200 paces away. A second look showed a whole line of wheat waving
wildly. As I followed the line, I saw it ran for several hundred paces. A quick glance to my left showed exactly the same on the other side of the road. The praetorians weren’t alone!
‘Ambush!’ I cried out, and my men took that as a signal to attack. Cerberus held his men back, letting the auxiliaries charge the vanguard of the praetorian column. From either side the Britons and the Germans roared as they ran full pelt up the slope for the second time, but Otho’s men had spread to occupy the whole causeway, holding the higher ground while my men toiled to battle both the soldiers and the slope.
‘No, we must pull back.’ Too late I saw that below me Publilius had spotted the danger. Being on horseback he could see what his men could not, the glint of steel as helmets and swords flashed in the morning sun. General Paulinus’s own party of ambushers were closing around my men. If we did not withdraw immediately my men would have to fight on two fronts, and they would surely be annihilated.
I caught sight of Cerberus’s bugler, and forced Achilles to head towards the maelstrom. When I came close enough, I snatched the instrument from the boy’s hand and blew the recall as loudly as I could. Cerberus’s head snapped back at the unexpected order, but with my free hand I pointed at the oncoming danger. My co-ordinated attack was turning to chaos before my very eyes.
‘He sold us out,’ the black man shouted at me. ‘Your friend has sold you out!’
XIV
That was the only conclusion I could reach as we beat a hasty and bloody retreat back to Cremona, with the praetorians following us nearly all the way. Thank the gods we had destroyed most of the enemy cavalry, or the retreat could have turned into a rout. Why had Agricola betrayed me?
I thought back to our conversation that moonlit night by the old ferry. He had seemed strangely nervous, but then I had put that down to his being shaken after finding himself surrounded by dozens of suspicious soldiers. The news that his wife Domitia did not approve of my son as a suitor was also a shock, but I could understand. Did my boyhood friend think the same way, or was I just being paranoid, blaming the defeat on anyone but myself? After all, my feint had worked, drawing in and obliterating the enemy cavalry, and Otho was certainly impetuous enough to throw his whole army in to repulse an ambush.
But it was the fact that the cavalry had stopped by the altar that convinced me my friend had sided with his emperor rather than his friend; or, as Agricola might have seen it, I realized, with the legitimate emperor rather than a gluttonous rebel. I had described the place to him to the last detail, explaining that my cavalry would withdraw beyond the grove and then my infantry would pounce. Agricola must have informed the cavalry commander about the altar and told him to go no further. The stationary cavalry had lured in me and my infantry, so both the cavalries had taken turns at being bait. I had hoped to destroy their cavalry and any other troops Otho was foolish enough to send my way; but my old general, my closest friend and the emperor I despised had conspired together to turn the ambushers into the ambushed, using the praetorians as a distraction while the rest of their army crept up under the cover of the high wheat fields.
‘I thought he was your friend,’ Publilius said.
Cerberus spat. ‘Some friend.’
‘He was my friend… I mean he is my friend,’ I said.
‘Then why would he betray you?’ Cerberus replied.
‘I don’t know. Otho’s pirates had killed his mother, I thought that was surely enough reason for Agricola to want to help us.’
‘But he’s a praetor, a leading member of the Senate. He’s one of the establishment that stood by and did nothing when Galba was murdered. I reckon Otho bought your friend’s loyalty, then he used your friendship against you,’ Cerberus opined.
‘He wouldn’t do that to me! Julius Agricola wouldn’t sell his loyalty to anyone.’
‘He just did.’
‘Maybe Otho has his family hostage in Rome,’ Publilius suggested. ‘That’s as good a way as any to make sure the men on your own side stay loyal.’
‘Maybe,’ I conceded sullenly. But I knew in my heart of hearts that Agricola was old-fashioned enough to side with Otho simply because he was emperor, even if he had murdered his way on to the throne. For men like Agricola, the emperor is sanctioned by the gods, even if they turn out to be hateful, tyrannical bastards like Nero, Galba or Otho.
Ahead of us, the remnants of my ambush streamed along the road towards Cremona. All attempts made to pursue us had now ended, so the three of us rode easily, wearily, back to camp, the two cavalry squadrons following close behind. As Cremona and our camp came into view, I was surprised to see hundreds of men tearing down the easternmost wall, the wall nearest to Otho’s army. Who had given the order to break camp?
By the roadside there stood a billowing crimson tent, far bigger than even my own, except three sides of the tent were still furled. It looked more like a pavilion than a soldier’s sleeping quarters. It was only when I saw a shortish figure, his blond hair regimentally cut but with flecks of grey at the temples, sitting in a solitary chair and surrounded by a court of officers that I knew Valens had arrived.
Like a faithful hound Totavalas was there too, waiting for me.
‘Dear oh dear, someone’s come home with his tail between his legs!’ No prizes for guessing which smug bastard greeted me with those words. Totavalas began to take my sling out of his satchel, raising his eyebrows questioningly. Did I want to wear the thing in front of Valens and his cronies? I nodded, doctor’s orders and all that.
‘Gentlemen, what was I thinking? We have a wounded man among us. Someone fetch him a chair.’ As aides scurried to carry out Valens’s orders I stood my ground.
‘No need, Valens. A dislocated shoulder doesn’t stop me from standing up. Besides, it doesn’t do for their men to see their general on his backside when they’re working.’
‘As you wish,’ he said, not moving. ‘I’m sure it is a noble wound you took for our emperor. Some Alpine farmer did it perhaps, or one of those horrible gladiators in Placentia? I hope you took revenge on the beast that hurt you?’
The lazy smile on his odious face and the suppressed snorts from his men made it clear they knew all about my accident with Achilles. I chose to rise above his taunts. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘That’s a nice welcome. I thought you were expecting me?’
‘I meant what are you doing here when you could have joined us on the battlefield?’
‘Oh, my vanguard has taken down one of the walls so that we can extend the camp. No sense building two camps for the enemy to attack.’
‘And you’ve been here for, what, three hours?’
‘Your point is?’
‘Three hours ago we were fighting Otho’s whole army.’
‘So I heard, with a handful of spineless auxiliaries.’
Publilius and Cerberus bristled at the insult.
‘We routed their entire cavalry,’ the African said pointedly. Valens got up from his chair and marched up to Cerberus, standing uncomfortably close to him. Cerberus didn’t move a muscle. ‘Publilius I know. Who are you?’
‘This is Prefect Cerberus,’ I said, ‘commander of the Silian cavalry. Vitellius formed their unit when he governed Africa, and they held this land while I crossed the mountains.’
‘Well, Cerberus. Your cavalry and your auxiliary infantry combined managed to rout Otho’s cavalry.’ He clapped his hands slowly in mock applause. Then his face hardened again. ‘But at what cost?’
Cerberus had to admit that he didn’t know. None of us did.
‘Your infantry has been arriving at Cremona in dribs and drabs over the last hour. Their officers have reported to me losses of nearly one and a half thousand men. And that doesn’t even count the maimed or the mortally wounded.’ Valens still stood right next to Cerberus, but he turned to look at me. His eyes narrowed triumphantly. ‘All things considered, I’d call that a defeat, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Cerberus said.
; ‘And the first rule of warfare is, Publilius?’
‘Never reinforce defeat, General.’
‘Precisely. We’ll make a half-decent soldier out of you yet. I’m only sorry that you’ve been poorly led in our emperor’s service.’
‘We attacked in the belief that it would only be the cavalry, sir. The general had a contact in Otho’s army who helped us set the trap.’
‘And?’
‘And the contact betrayed us.’
Valens snorted. ‘So I’m left to mop up. Vitellius is going to have a very interesting report to read once we’ve defeated Otho, isn’t he?’
‘I’d rather be certain that we’re going to beat him before you start dreaming of the scraps Vitellius will throw you. But first I’m going to see to my men. You sit here and watch your men build their walls; mine have been risking their lives for their emperor.’
And with that I swept round contemptuously, Cerberus, Publilius and Totavalas following at my heel. The three of us relieved the men who had held our horses and rode slowly towards the camp, Totavalas striding powerfully to keep up.
Cerberus was the first to speak. ‘He’s a confident man, that General Valens.’
‘That’s one way to describe him,’ I said mirthlessly.
‘It’s hardly my place to criticize a general,’ Totavalas began.
‘I’ve a feeling you’re going to anyway,’ Publilius said.
‘But I told him where you and the auxiliaries had gone the moment he arrived in Cremona. I said that you were going to ambush Otho and that if he got all his men together quickly he could have ended the war by nightfall. Do you know what he did?’
‘What?’ Cerberus said tiredly, as though indulging an irritating child.
‘He had one of his men chase me off, saying that if I thought he would risk a single man to help your army, then I was a fool.’
I sighed. ‘What did you expect? You’re a freedman, not even a citizen. Nobody in the whole army is going to give a damn what you think.’
The Sword and the Throne Page 17